Monday, June 25, 2007

post modern love

I told you how we met, my Mister and I, on a blind date nearly 23 years ago. Today I was reminded why I fell in love with him.

I had just turned 17. Mister was 22. Five years is a hefty age difference for a teenager. Most people, my mother included, would have assumed that it was a case of a suave, slick older guy trying to nail a naive, inexperienced teen. That wasn't Mister at all.

Mister was not suave. Nor was he slick. He was funny and charming. And within the first hour of meeting me, he was in love. He told his mother the very next day that I was the kind of girl he wanted to marry. His mother suspected that I was perhaps more than just 'the kind' of girl. That maybe I was the girl.

It wasn't love at first sight for me. I enjoyed his company very much. He was laid back and easy to talk to and obviously well-liked by his friends. But I was shallow. Mister was non-enigmatic and cute, but I liked dashing, brooding men. Yet we'd had a great time together. I accepted when he asked me out again. And again. And again.

Mister had a healthy respect (go ahead and substitute fear) for my dad. He appreciated that though I was out of high school, I was yet a minor living at home and I had a curfew. He was hard working and honest. And very funny. Funny in a goofy, quick, well-timed way.

Sitting next to him in his car with our friends in the back seat, we were headed to the state fair. Knowing that I liked David Bowie, Mister was playing the "Let's Dance" cassette. When the song "Modern Love" came on, without any forethought, Mister did what he has always done. He started singing along to the song and making up his own lyrics.

"Modern love, no comprende . . . "

It struck me as devilishly funny. He was saying many things to me with one silly line. I was hooked. I can remember exactly where we were on Viking Avenue and how the light from the setting sun was flooding the car when he sang that song. I looked at him, he smiled his charming, guileless smile at me and I thought to myself, "Oh man, I think I love this guy."

I was reminded of that sweet scene this evening when Mister came out to the dock to pick me up. I walk almost daily to a dock a mile and a half from our house. I like to sit alone and think for awhile before walking back home. This evening was cold and windy and I didn't have a jacket so I called Mister and asked him to come get me. I also asked him to bring a blanket so we could sit together for awhile.

Fifteen minutes later (it should have taken less than 2 minutes, but he spaced out and forgot me . . . ) he came walking out towards me with a white blanket bundled in his arms. Just before he reached my bench, he flung the blanket out fully around and behind him and started to dance and sing Stevie Nicks' "White Winged Dove." But in his own style,

"Just like a one winged glove . . . "

My meditation was over. It's hard to meditate when your husband is doing a Stevie Nicks impersonation and making up lyrics. This, I told myself, is why I love him and why I will always be with him. He is still that same charming, loving, sweet man who isn't afraid to be foolish to make me laugh.